ARIA History - Wright Patterson AFB
In December
1975, after seven years of operation by AFETR, the ARIA, re-designated
Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft following completion of the Apollo
program, was transferred to the 4950th Test Wing at Wright-Patterson AFB,
Ohio, as part of an Air Force consolidation of large test and evaluation
aircraft. By the early 1980’s, the ARIA fleet consisted of eight modified
aircraft, six EC-135N aircraft with J-57 turbojet engines and two EC-135B
aircraft with TF-33 turbofan engines.
Dedicated to support of worldwide missile and space testing, the aircraft
modifications included a 7 foot diameter telemetry antenna, housed in a ten
foot radome in the nose of the aircraft. It also included extensive
telemetry communications instrumentation which could
be configured to perform telemetry tracking of dynamic objects,
telemetry signal reception and
recording, on board data processing and reformatting, real-time or
post-mission (retransmission) data relay through communication satellites
via high frequency radio or direct line-of-sight relay to ground stations,
and voice communications relay. In addition to the antenna in the nose, the
ARIA had a probe antenna on each wing tip as well as a trailing wire antenna
on the bottom of the fuselage, all used for high frequency radio
transmission and reception. Further external
modifications included antennas for post-mission data
retransmission and satellite communications. The
internal modification to the cargo compartment included all of the
instrumentation subsystems (Prime Mission Electronic Equipment) installed in
the form of a 30,000 pound modular package. Modifications also included
provisions for eight to nine additional crew members
to operate the instrumentation equipment.
The current Prime Mission
Electronic Equipment was organized into
six functional subsystems and a
master control console to provide the ARIA mission
support capability. The Antenna Subsystem acquired and tracked, either
manually, automatically, or by computer, the launch
vehicle using the 7 foot dish antenna mounted in the nose radome. The
Telemetry Subsystem was configured as a set of six
dual-channel AN/AKF-4 receivers that received the vehicle telemetry signals.
The Record Subsystem was designed to use Inter-Range Instrumentation
Group-standard equipment to meet user requirements for data recording,
monitoring, and playback. The Timing Subsystem, physically collocated
with the Record Subsystem, served as the central timing facility for the
ARIA electronic suite, generating time codes to permit
time correlation of vehicle events during tape processing. The
Communications Subsystem provided the voice communications
through three 1000 watt single sideband high frequency transmitters and
receivers, and data transmission through a 1000 watt AN/ARC-l46 UHF
satellite terminal. The Data
Separation Subsystem further processed the telemetry signals, generally a
combination of several channels of analog and/or digital information, into
individual measurements for onboard display. The last module, the Master
Control Consol was operated by the ARIA mission coordinator, to control on
board management merit of the instrumentation crew.
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